Above : The familiar edible sweet potato - tubers (left) and heart-shaped foliage (right)

Sweet potatoes are best known for their edible tubers. Sweet and starchy, the tubers are an essential ingredient in many local desserts. Botanically known as Ipomoea batatas, the sweet potato is a member of the morning flory family, Convolvulaceae and is closely related to the morning flory vine (I. purpurea) and the leafy vegetable, kangkong (I. aquatica). It is not related to the true potato, which is a member of the tomato family, Solanaceae.

A perennial in the tropics, the sweet potato plant is a non-climbing, herbaceous vine that is native to tropical America. Mature plants produce purplish morning glory-like flowers. Most of us are familiar with the traditional sweee potato tubers that have a light brown skin, longish in shape which tapers towards both ends. Now there are varieties from Japan that have reddish purple coloured skins. When cut, sweet potato tubers reveal a myraid of flesh colors - white, cream, yellow, orange and purple. The sweet potato bears alternate heart-shaped or palmately-lobed leaves, which are not spared from being used as food. The young leaves are stir-fried as a leafy vegetable with chilli and minced dried shrimps.

Sweet potato vines are extremely vigorus growers that quickly cover up the ground surface, capable or smothering weed growth, thereby reducing the need to weed! They are easily established, relatively pest-free and rather tolerant of soggy soil conditions. These characteristics make the sweet potato vine a very attractive groundcover candidate! The indecisive vegetable gardener may want to consider growing the sweet potato as temporary ground cover for a plot. Once a crop has been selected, the vines can be easily cleared and the leaves be used for food. If left long enough, there may be tubers uderground waiting to be harvested!

Above : Ornamental sweet potato varieties, clockwise from top left - “Black Heart’, ‘Blackie’, ‘Tricolor’ and ‘Marguerite’.

There are ornametal sweet potato varieties grown exclusively for their decorative foliage. These ornamental variesties may also produce edible underground tubers but they are usually less prolific and tubers are usually smaller and not as palatable as those that have been bred and grown exclusively for their tubers. The colorful leaves of these ornamental varieties canbe used to enhance the flowers and foliage of companian plants.

Locally, four varieties of ornamental sweet potato vines can be found - ‘Blackie’, ‘ Marguerite’, ‘Black Heart’ and ‘Tricolor’. ‘Blackie’ has greenish or purple leaves that are deeply lobed. ‘Marguerite’ on the other had has bright, chartreuse green heart-shaped leaves. ‘Black Heart’ has also heart-shaped leaves which are dark purple. ‘Tricolor’ is perhaps the most spectacular variety with variegated, palmate leaves with splashes of green, white, and pink. Unfortunately, it exhibits a less vigorous growth pattern.

- by Wilson Wong

It is the most beautiful country in the world. You don’t believe me?

Give me another reason I hear you say!

The elongated one is the most “nyaman” you have ever tasted. How my wife’s ancestor managed to find it in the forest and plant it in his garden we will never know, but he/she did, and today the “forest” behind my father-in-law’s house consists of 60-70% of durian trees.

These guys are some of our relatives at the ancestral longhouse site where my wife was born…….right on top of Rais Sentah on top of the mountain where my wife’s people have their origin. There are other edible fruit trees in the forest. Here are two :

This is the Langsat Susu the Sarawak variety of Lansium domesticum

This is the Belimbing hutan (Baccaurea angulata)

So……………………………….wanna come?

- by Simon Longman

A day out at the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (SBWR) for SCAS.

Faciliting a half day session for the children from Spastic Children Association School (SCAS), Cerebral Palsy Centre, is always a different experience, but no less fulfilling and fun.

For yesterday, everything seemed new - from a new group of children, to teachers, volunteers and even the bus company that was chartered to bring the children to SBWR!  Mr Adrian Cheong, Assistant Manager for Corporate Communications from Singapore Press Holdings Foundation, joined us for the first time, and came as a representative to watch the programme in action.

The children were divided into two groups.  This round we had parent volunteers from the school joining us too.  The two groups of children were led by Sungei Buloh volunteer guides, Mr KS Wong and Mr TC Tan.  In every Sub Club programme, we are always blessed to have helpful and friendly volunteers.  Yesterday was no exception.  The guides were assisted by NParks staff and Sungei Buloh volunteers.

In conservation with Teacher Yihui before the programme started, and the children were just loaded up the bus, she had voiced her concern about the dark clouds coming through.  I said let’s keep our fingers crossed!  Bad weather was held back and the group was more that blessed with what started off as a cloudy day.  Thirty minutes into the programme, and we all had fantastic morning sunshine on everyone.

The tide was low as the groups ventured out to the Main Bridge.  A light sea breeze was blowing through, and on the river banks, some water hens were busily looking for food.  In the distance, a grey heron must have noticed us and moved off a few metres before settling down on a branch again.  A small water monitor positioned itself nicely on a concrete slab near the sluice gates, and seemed oblivious to the excitement of our visitors and continued enjoying the wonderfull sunshine.

An hour passed and the excitement continued for everybody as they were greeted with amazing sights of egrets feeding on the mudflats, and tha sounds and sights or kingfishers dashing about sometimes from tree to tree.  Some of the children felt the softness of the sea hibiscus flower that fell to the ground, and you could see the delight on their faces.  It must have been special and perhaps even therapeutic experience for these children to come out and enjoy nature and the wetlands outdoors.

When the groups returned to the workroom for a late morning tea break, it was heartening to see the happy and contented faces, and the similes and chattering among the volunteers and the children continued to brighten up an already wonderful morning.  When it came to the end of the programme, we brought the children out to the bus bay and loaded them up the bus.  They put their little faces towards the windows and waved to the volunteers.  They never stop waving till the bus drove out of the main gate.

 As I walked back to office along the butterfly trail, I had many thoughts running through my mind.  I recalled a little girl in a wheelchair, smiling, pointing to a shrub, asking me “why are there so many green colours in this place”?  I thought about the innocence of her question, I thought about my answer.  I smiled.  It was smile of contentment.  I thought about why we were doing this programme.  Does one person ever make a difference?  Of course it does.  And when we all become more aware, this is a start.  For these children, your thoughtfulness, understandng and friendship means something to them,  I know for sure, it will add on to the overall experience of pleasure and joy, not just for the children, but perhaps the adult volunteers as well.  Humans, unlike other species perhaps, have the potential, and are empowered to have a conscience, and to have emphathy.  There must be a reason for this, perhaps.  How would you see this potential?

- by Jeanne Tan

It’s the Mid-Autumn Festival and everybody’s blogging about moon cakes. But I rather eat them than blog about them! And what better way to enjoy moon cakes than in the cool of the evening with a whiff of the natural fragrance of the Moon Flower. 

The Moon Flower (Ipomoea alba) is quite special. It only blooms at night. I read that it’s because it wants to attract nocturnal insects like moths to pollinate it. It belongs to the Morning Glory family, but the flower is much bigger, and looks more like a hibiscus actually.  Propagation is by means of seeds and it’s quite a simple plant to grow. You can plant it in a pot. Make sure it gets adequate sunlight and plant it near to something to climb because it is a climber.